


And Time Is Taking Its Sweet Time Erasing You

by NotFlyingWithOtters



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M, Songfic kinda? Maybe?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotFlyingWithOtters/pseuds/NotFlyingWithOtters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve remembered how it had felt the first time – lying on his bed reading comic books with Bucky when the taller, stronger, dark haired boy had leant and kissed him. Steve hadn’t known what to feel. It was wrong! And Steve learnt all he knew from Bucky, from those first tentative touches on paper skin to the last, rough time against a scratchy woollen blanket in an army barracks fifty miles from the German border.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Time Is Taking Its Sweet Time Erasing You

**Author's Note:**

> "Time is taking its sweet time erasing you.  
> And you've got your demons and darling they all look like me."
> 
> I sort of accidentally songfic'd to Sad, Beautiful, Tragic by Taylor Swift.  
> But not really.

Steve remembered how it had felt the first time – lying on his bed reading comic books with Bucky when the taller, stronger, dark haired boy had leant and kissed him. Steve hadn’t known what to feel. It was wrong! They were doing something wrong! But the feel of Bucky’s hands – gentle, he was always gentle when Steve was as breakable as glass – on his chest felt so right, so much better than anything he had ever felt. And then he was thirteen and he’d been sat with Bucky and suddenly he’d just got hard. He swallowed, it was the first time around anyone, and he didn’t know what to do. So Bucky showed him. He remembered lying on his back, jeans pooled on the floor as Bucky relieved the pressure, kissing the corner of his mouth, smothering the gasps that tumbled unheeded from Steve’s lips. Bucky showed him how to love his body, how to feel things that he could barely have believed were possible before. And Steve learnt all he knew from Bucky, from those first tentative touches on paper skin to the last, rough time against a scratchy woollen blanket in an army barracks fifty miles from the German border.

Steve remembered how it had felt the last time; the drag of hands over his uniform, the heavy and hot breath against his jaw and how Bucky had whispered how much he wanted him, needed him. Steve had been powerless to resist, his friends hands had been everywhere, all over his chest, stripping him and pressing against him, the faint flush of his skin against Steve’s almost too much. How when Bucky had come inside him, sobbing his name into the expanse of skin on his chest Steve had instantly wrapped himself tight around him, rocking him. How Bucky had whispered promises that when the war was over he’d be with him properly, that he wouldn’t be ashamed any more. And then he’d let him die; let him drop from that train. And before he could even make amends for it, atone for letting Bucky fall to his death, the plane had crashed in the ice and he had frozen. Only to wake in a world he didn’t recognise, didn’t understand.

When Steve woke up from the ice, he wanted to die. Honestly, his entire life was gone. Bucky, the reminders of the loss was all too powerful, too raw, too much to even fathom in a world that his lover had never known. He was alone.

And then, inexplicably, he wasn’t. The Avengers, the team, all of them. They were his friends, comrades in arms, but no matter what they did, how close they were, it never even lessened that dull ache that radiated from the inside of his chest and through his veins – the hole where Bucky should be was still there and larger than ever, bleeding him dry. The others had never known him as he was before, never known the loud and vibrant Steve Rogers that had lead a whole troupe into a battle and returned with them all alive. They had never known the true passion that thrummed in Steve’s veins and throughout his entire body. So they were so fine for him to sit in silence on the sofa and draw, legs curled up under him. Steve was fine, of course he was. Until he wasn’t. He would never have let on that he wasn’t okay if Tony hadn’t pushed him, forced him to bare all that made him who he was.

* * *

 

He had been sat on the sofa, legs curled under him as per, sketching Bucky from memory. As Tony came and sat beside him, he carefully and slowly flipped his sketchbook page over and began sketching just the skyline in silence, not really moving. Tony was sprawled on the sofa beside him, chest heaving from the sparring session he’d had with Natasha in the gym a few minutes earlier.

“What are you drawing, Capsicle?” He asked tiredly, exhaustion hazing in his voice.

“New York.” He replied quietly. He’d been the most reluctant to move into Avengers Tower (formerly Stark Tower) out of all of them, and tended to keep out of the way when he wasn’t in the communal area – retreating instead to his room to lay in the dark in his exhaustion, staring at the ceiling. People thought that Steve Rogers didn’t sleep, but that was a lie. Instead, he slept all the time, just trying to either forget or remember, he just wasn’t sure which.

“Riveting stuff I’m sure.” Tony looked over at him. “Jarvis tells me you’ve been curled here for hours; that isn’t much work for that much time.” And absurdly, Steve wanted to tell him, wanted to talk to him about Bucky.

“Been thinking.” He replied evasively, suddenly struck with a sickening wrench of guilt down in his stomach. “Sorry I have some paperwork to do for Fury.” Abruptly, he folded his sketchbook closed and placed it on the table before scurrying off towards the lower levels of the tower, his own floor that Tony had so kindly decorated for him. And when he reached his bedroom, he simply flopped on his bed, the guilt and deep-rooted sadness almost too much for him to bear. He shut his mind down a little, Bucky’s face swimming in front of his eyes every time he blinked.

* * *

 

After an hour there was a slight tap on the door that Steve ignored, blocking it out from his entire being. He took a slow breath in and out, staring up at the ceiling as the door slid open, Tony stood in the doorway.

“Cap?” Steve barely moved, barely even breathed. “Steve.” Now that got to him, because Bucky had used that tone when his mother had died, when he’d wrapped him in his coat and just sat with him on the staircase in his house, so silent and empty now that she was gone. “Steve?” He asked again, his voice a little stronger as he stepped towards him and eased himself onto the bed. “Steve.” His voice was harder, not so much that it would scare Steve, but to bring him out of the reverie.

“Tony?” He asked childishly, his voice thin and reedy. “What is it?” He sat up, pressing his broad back against the headboard of his bed.

“This.” With a grandiose sweep of his hand he indicated the room. “Is not paperwork.” Steve shrugged, looking away from Tony’s intense gaze.

“I needed some time.” He said slowly, not quite able to meet his eyes.

“What for, Steve?” He asked softly, uncharacteristically gentle. “I know I’ve been a bastard to you, but I’d like to try and make amends. What’s eating you?” Tony placed his hand on Steve’s thigh very gently.

“Nothing, I’m fine.” He avoided the issue, too tired to really say anything else. “I’m just tired that’s all.” Tony arched a brow.

“Steve, Jarvis has surveillance on this place all the time. You’ve been sleeping a lot – far more than necessary. I’m worried about you. What’s wrong?” He carefully curled his legs beneath himself and sat watching him with the curiously bright gaze that was the Tony Stark patent.

“This place…” He paused, a little unsure how to continue. “This _time_. It’s so… wrong.” And then, without warning, it was all coming out in a rush. “Bucky isn’t here. I need him, I love him. Loved him. I don’t really know any more but… you all expect me to be this blushing virgin but really I’m just a sinner. I’m an abomination because of who I used to love.” He hid his face in his hands, not wanting to see the judgement that was sure to be written on Tony’s face.

“You think we’ll judge you because you’re gay? Steve, this is the twenty first century, gay marriage is legal. Hell, if you loved Bucky then I have no right to judge you for that. The team don’t either. Come on Cap, we need you.” He smiled a little, although Steve didn’t see. “I um… I understand you miss him, but you have us. We’re your friends and we care. So give it a chance, give the team a chance. We’re your family, okay so Bruce might get really mad and destroy Harlem, and Clint and Tasha could kill you seventeen different ways with a teapot, Thor is a god that could destroy Earth in a moment and I’m the most dysfunctional of us all. But we’re your family okay?” He squeezed his thigh slightly. “When you’re ready, give us a chance. Alright, Steve? That’s all I ask.” He walked away from the room, leaving Steve to his thoughts.

* * *

 

A few weeks later and Steve was regularly coming to movie night (watching Thor eat an entire bucket of popcorn in under five minutes whilst Clint was trying to steal some was not something to be missed) and team dinners. What Tony had said had played on his mind since he’d heard it and he remembered it all well. He’d made an effort to integrate, to be friends, to learn to love this new, albeit dysfunctional, family. And they’d accepted him without question – their leader on the team and friend outside of it.

During movie night on the third month that Steve had finally found a place in the world he’d never known, he drew Tony aside when he went to get a drink.

“Tony I…” He paused for a moment. “I wanted to show you something.” He pulled his sketchbook from the pocket of his hoodie and handed it to him. For the first half it was pictures of Bucky, smiling, walking, just caught from the side in a striking profile. And then, it was as if a light had switched, something had changed so irrevocably and completely. Because in the second half of the book it was drawings of Tony, the slight quirk of his lips when he was proud of himself and the true smile from the first time Steve had ever come to breakfast with them. Tony gaped a little.

“Steve…” Steve blushed, a tiny smile on his face. “I… I just…”

“Can I… can I keep one of these?” Tony asked quietly and pointed to the one of him stood in the lab, the arc reactor lighting up his face as much as the tug of a smile.

“I… of course. I thought you’d be mad.”

“Mad? Steve you’re incredible.” He smiled for a moment. “And you’ve only drawn me and Bucky. Why is that?” Steve went quiet then and turned his gaze away.

“I… I’ve been thinking about what you said to me a lot. I thought that we were friends I guess.” Tony held up the sketchbook.

“Friends? This is far more than friends, Steve. What do you want from me?” Steve mumbled something unintelligible and took a sip of his water. “Steve?”

“I don’t know.” He replied honestly. “I lived in sin before I just wanted… I wanted to know if you would consider going on a date with me.” He gave a small, hopeful smile.

“Steve, you’re babbling. Of course I would.” He met his eyes. “Though you don’t have to wait until then to kiss me if you want to.” He smiled, the mischievous glint back.

“Oh.” Steve flushed and then dipped his head to kiss him softly, sliding his hands around his waist and pulling him a little closer. Tony was so warm, so different to Bucky, and Steve began to think that maybe, just maybe, this could fix him.


End file.
